An enlarged photo murder victim Elizabeth “Lizzi” Marriott leans against a table among more than 100 pieces of evidence put on display Friday in Strafford County Superior Court. (Mike Lawrence)

Chilling display of Mazzaglia evidence

By MIKE LAWRENCEUnion Leader Correspondent

DOVER — An exhibition of evidence from last month’s murder trial of Dover resident Seth Mazzaglia gave a chilling look Friday into the mind of the man convicted of strangling UNH student Elizabeth “Lizzi” Marriott to death in October 2012.

“The second price is this — you choose a friend. Any of yours will do — and you offer her to me. That I may do *anything* I wish with her while you watch and assist in any way I might command you to do so,” Mazzaglia wrote in a lengthy text message to his former girlfriend, Kathryn “Kat” McDonough, on Aug. 25, 2012.

McDonough, who worked with Marriott at a Target store in Greenland, was preparing at that time to come home from a summer job as a counselor at a theater camp in Maine. Earlier in the message, Mazzaglia graphically described brutal sexual acts he would inflict on her or force her to do as a penalty for leaving him without companionship.

State prosecutors cited the message several times during Mazzaglia’s trial, which lasted nearly all of June. It was posted in full on a display board Friday in Strafford County Superior Court, along with rows of Facebook conversations, cell phone messages and computer documents that stretched around Courtroom #2, where the trial was held. Photos of Mazzaglia’s Dover apartment, Marriott’s car and other evidence scenes and items were placed on tables.

The black gloves prosecutors said Mazzaglia wore while he strangled Marriott with a white cotton rope lay on one table, next to the black Avenue Q hoodie Marriott wore on the night of her death.

Strafford County Superior Court clerk Julie Howard said the amount of evidence compiled was “what would be expected of a trial of this duration.”

“This was a way of providing access to the exhibits in an organized fashion,” she said of Friday’s exhibition. “We couldn’t make (evidence) easily available during the trial because it was being used.”

Mazzaglia, 31, was convicted June 27 of murdering Marriott on Oct. 9, 2012, in the Dover apartment Mazzaglia shared with McDonough.

The jury found Mazzaglia guilty of two charges of first-degree murder, one for purposely strangling Marriott and the other for committing an act of violent sexual assault on her body before, after or while killing her.

He faces an automatic sentence of life without parole on either first-degree murder conviction.

A court document filed this month states that the latter charge, involving sexual assault, will be used for sentencing purposes at Mazzaglia’s sentencing hearing, which is scheduled for 10 a.m. Aug. 14.

Mazzaglia also was found guilty of conspiracy of falsifying physical evidence and conspiracy to commit tampering with witnesses.

Another court document filed earlier this month provides a list of 11 people who could speak at Mazzaglia’s sentencing. The list includes Bob and Melissa Marriott, Marriott’s parents; both of her grandmothers; several aunts and uncles; a friend from childhood; and Brittany Atwood, her girlfriend at the time of her death.